Volunteer fire departments are the result of neighbors in
rural areas taking it upon themselves to help themselves. VFDs raise money
to outfit the fire departments and train the volunteers. A portion of
the money comes from memberships. Anyone can be a member. Most VFDs require
households to be members before the volunteers will respond to a fire.

Squires Firefighters Get Organized

It
wasn't so long ago, Theta Porter remembers, that whenever a fire broke
out around Squires, south of Ava, you had to drive from house to house
to round up neighbors to help fight it.

"It was just very simple: There was no fire protection,"
says Porter from behind the counter of her Porter's Cafe on Highway 5,
just south of Spurlock Store. Porter has owned and operated the local
diner for 30 years and, in the past, was often the one people would call
about a fire because she had a phone when many didn't; she could start
contacting other people while the caller started fighting the fire.

It's not surprising, then, that Porter was one of a group
of neighbors who in 1982 decided to turn their house-to-house effort into
a community-wide fire-fighting organization. They formed the Squires Volunteer
Fire Department that year and immediately starting raising money to build
a firehouse and buy some trucks and other fire-fighting equipment for
those who volunteered to be on-call.

The Squires VFD has its own history, people and successes,
including an Independence Day fund-raiser that now draws as many as 6,000
people to the community every year on the Saturday before the 4th of July
for homemade ice cream, homegrown music and lots of down-home fun.

But the Squires VFD story is just one of many in the Bryant
Creek watershed. There are 27 volunteer fire departments in the watershed's
three counties. All are the result of neighbors in rural areas taking
it upon themselves to help themselves.

One of the biggest jobs is the constant work of raising
money to outfit the fire departments and train the volunteers. Thanks
to the country tradition of combining work and play, however, the fundraising
part of the job can be a lot of fun. But even with the fundraising efforts,
many volunteers often spend their own money for some of their equipment.

Most VFDs have a Ladies Auxiliary, which is a group of mostly
local women who get together to plan and organize the fundraising dinners
and other events. Theta Porter is the president of Squires' Ladies Auxiliary.
She says that although only about 10 women actually do the planning, dozens
more are involved because they always respond to the auxiliary's call
for cakes and other food for the events.

The same is true for the fire department's board. Porter
is secretary of the board, which again is a smaller number of people who
make decisions. But when they call for help, dozens of people in the community
respond with volunteer labor. The Squires firehouse, for example, was
built entirely with donated labor, she says.

Most people will help if you ask them, Porter says. "And
I happen to be pretty good at saying 'Will you help?'"

A portion of the money VFDs raise comes from memberships.
The Squires VFD charges $35 a year per household and has about 250 members.
Anyone can be member; you don't have to live within a certain distance
of the firehouse, for example. But most VFDs require households to be
members before the volunteers will respond. That can be a tough rule to
follow when fires break out at homes or farms where the owners are not
VFD members. Many communities have discussed this dilemma at length and
most have continued their policies of requiring membership.

Participation is the key to VFD success in raising both
money and community awareness. "This fire department has really brought
the community together," Theta Porter says. Fundraising events, such as
chili dinners, pie suppers and big
barbecues are important for financial support. But they also help neighbors
keep in contact with each other. So many are so busy so much of the time
that they don't get out and visit like they used to, old-timers say.

Pie suppers are among the most popular events, and VFDs
hold them not only for the fire department but also to raise money for
people who have lost their homes in fires or who may be facing big hospital
bills for one reason or another.

Theta Porter says they've modernized pie suppers some at
Squires VFD. Now, people bid on and buy the pies, but then everyone sits
down together to eat them - or at least those who haven't taken the pie
home to eat all by themselves.

Neighbors and neighborliness make the watershed's volunteer
fire departments possible - just like in the days when all the neighbors
came running to help put out fires. Now, however, many rural communities
have found the VFD way of providing themselves with equipment and training
to do an even better job.